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Old 12-12-2003, 01:06 PM   #1
Hookbill the Goomba
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Tolkien Continuity errors in Tolkien

Ok, None of us should be too critical of J.R.R, but its human nature. It has been well documented that Christopher Tolkien was a continuity fanatic and he often pointed out errors in the text. There is one in particular I have noticed;
Firstly, Somewhere in Silmarillion when it talks about Melko's name change, it says that he was called Morgoth ever after, and that the name Melkor is never spoken on earth. YET, Legolas says, "They were bread by Melkor".
Have you noticed any continuity errors?
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Old 12-12-2003, 01:26 PM   #2
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At one point, Gandalf tells Frodo that Sauron does not allow his name to be written or uttered by his servants. It is rather hard to reconcile that with Sauron's servant proclaiming himself "the Mouth of Sauron" and referring to his master as "Sauron the Great."

As for the point about Melkor's name being uttered, I agree that Professor Tolkien slipped on that one several times. In his uncompleted (barely started would be more accurate) novel The New Shadow, an ordinary man of Gondor refers to the Music of the Ainur and mentions the name of Melkor.
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Old 12-12-2003, 01:38 PM   #3
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Yes, there does seem to be a problem with the Mouth of Sauron's use of the name. One could speculate that he was for some reason exempt from the edict, but it's hard to think of a good reason for this.

I'm not as convinced that the use of the name "Melkor" in The New Shadow is a continuity error. It's hard to swallow the claim about Melkor's name not being uttered if we interpret it as meaning that never again did any living being (other than his servants) utter the name "Melkor". It seems to me, rather, that we should interpret it as a more general statement - the name "Melkor" was replaced in ordinary speech by "Morgoth". For, after all, the Elves went on calling him "Melkor" in their histories of the events prior to the Darkening of Valinor.

Hookbill: I don't recall any use of the name "Melkor" in LotR. Where do you find it?

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 2:38 PM December 12, 2003: Message edited by: Aiwendil ]
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Old 12-12-2003, 01:43 PM   #4
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Hookbill: I don't recall any use of the name "Melkor" in LotR. Where do you find it?
Actually, now that I think about it, I do not remember such a use either. What context does your Legolas quote come from?
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Old 12-12-2003, 02:49 PM   #5
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In Lothlorien Legolas says:
"'It was a Balrog of Morgoth,' said Legolas; `of all elf-banes the most deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower.'"
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Old 12-14-2003, 01:59 PM   #6
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Yes, but Legolas said "Morgoth," not "Melkor." The Elves have a loooong history of enmity with Morgoth, which is why they don't address him by his "real" name.

Morgoth was given the name "Morgoth" by Fëanor, because he killed dear Fe-Fe's father, Finwë (yep, I got my skull bashed in by a Dark Lord's mace. Next time, remind me to invest in a better security system.) and stole his Silmarilli. Since that didn't sit too well with Fe-Fe, Morgoth got declared the "Dark Enemy" (hence the name Morgoth, which means "Dark Enemy") and Fëanor and his sons said an oath that they would not rest until all three Silmarilli were back in their possession, and that they would kick the butt of whoever withheld any of the Silmarilli from them.

For an Elf to call Morgoth by his other name (*shudder shudder* Melkor *shudder shudder*) would be like saying that he wasn't the enemy of the Elves at all. The name "Melkor" means "One who arises in might," a rather positive name, to be sure. No self-respecting Elf would praise Morgoth like that, and call him by his real name.
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Old 12-14-2003, 02:06 PM   #7
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then again, i thought there was something that said they couldn't say the name morgoth either. course, i could be mistaken about that.
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Old 12-14-2003, 03:19 PM   #8
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Another error, which Christopher Tolkien points out in The History of the Lord of the Rings, is the scene in Book II, Chapter III where Frodo and Gandalf notice a shadow in the sky. Gandalf says perhaps it was a small wisp of cloud, and Aragorn mutters "it was moving fast then, and not with the wind."

C.J.R.T. says this can be nothing other than a Nazgul, but points out that this cannot be, since, as is later made clear in Book III, the winged Nazgul had not yet crossed the River Anduin, being saved for other purposes. This was apparently a slip by Tolkien.
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Old 12-14-2003, 03:32 PM   #9
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That is a good point, Elladan. I always assumed it was a Nazgul, but that cannot be reconciled with the later-stated fact that the Nazgul did not cross the Anduin for some time after that, since the Company was west of the Anduin when the "wisp of cloud" passed overhead.
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Old 12-14-2003, 04:00 PM   #10
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Another one (which I didn't spot myself, but rather read about) is a rather large discrepancy between "The Hobbit" and LOTR. The distance between Rivendell and the stone trolls in "The Hobbit" is only a couple of days, whereas in LOTR it's a much longer trip, thus adding to the "Will he/won't he?" tension as they cart an ill Frodo along.
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Old 12-14-2003, 04:12 PM   #11
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"it was moving fast then, and not with the wind."
I can't recall the passage exactly, but couldn't that have been a reference to the ever-present eagle? Surely if it had been a Nazgûl there would have been some awful reaction to its presence, even that high. It's not only the Ringbearers that feel their presence.

That Mouth of Sauron one is a shocker! Of course, he was never the greatest messenger. If you were really desperate to defend the continuity of the books, you could just say that he forgot, and was always getting in trouble for it. Or maybe that he presumed he was above this rule, except when the big boss was around. I'm sure there's a lot of those types in everyday life!
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Old 12-14-2003, 05:00 PM   #12
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Kalimac, in The Hobbit, Bilbo hadn't been stabbed by a Morgul blade, and wasn't in danger of suffering a fate far worse than death. They could risk a rather quick pace. In The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo was wounded by the Morgul blade, and was very very sick, ergo even if he wanted to, Aragorn had to keep a fairly slow pace, so that Frodo wouldn't fall behind or so he wouldn't become overly exhausted, and become more vulnerable to the wound.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 6:00 PM December 14, 2003: Message edited by: Finwe ]
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Old 12-14-2003, 05:59 PM   #13
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Quote:
I can't recall the passage exactly, but couldn't that have been a reference to the ever-present eagle? (doug*platypus)
No, it was almost definitely intended by Tolkien to be a Nazgul. Which is why it was described as a "shadow" which, like the Ringwraights had earlier in the book in did later, caused Frodo to "shiver".
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Old 12-14-2003, 07:23 PM   #14
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Kalimac: Do you find an explicit reference in The Hobbit to the number of days it took to reach Rivendell?

I certainly got the impression that the journey in The Hobbit was a lot quicker, but on reflection I always thought that this was simply because Bilbo and the Dwarves were on a leisurely, fairly uneventful trip about which there simply wasn't as much to say as about the one in LotR.
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Old 12-14-2003, 07:39 PM   #15
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I always thought that this was simply because Bilbo and the Dwarves were on a leisurely, fairly uneventful trip about which there simply wasn't as much to say as about the one in LotR.
That was my impression as well. Perhaps a reread of The Hobbit is in order for me (I have not read it in 10 years [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] )
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Old 12-15-2003, 12:12 AM   #16
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Finwe and Aiwendil - it's a little ambiguous, but I was always under the impression that it was a fairly short journey. The beginning of "A Short Rest" goes;

They did not sing or tell stories that day, even though the weather improved; nor the next day, nor the next. They had begun to feel that danger was not far away on either side. They camped under the stars, and their horses had more to eat than they had; for there was plenty of grass, but there was not much in their bags, even with what they had got from the trolls. One morning they forded a river...

The morning that they ford the river is the same day that the arrive in Rivendell. When I was remembering the chapter, I remembered the "that day, the next day, and the next" progression, but I forgot about the "one morning" which of course could be anything from the fourth morning to the fortieth. So to be honest, it is open to question. It had always left me previously with the impression of "four or five days" especially since in the previous chapter Gandalf mentions meeting Elves from Rivendell who were "hurrying along for fear of the trolls" - it's implied that they're going back to Rivendell, and it seems odd for them to be "hurrying" when their destination is a full two weeks away, the way it is in FOTR. Surely if they were that far from home base, hurrying wouldn't really be so much of an issue as making sure that you're properly armed and cloaked.

There's one more thing: it's true that Aragorn et al had a sick Frodo who slowed things down considerably, and that must have factored into the fourteen or fifteen days it took them to get to Rivendell. But there are fifteen travellers in "The Hobbit" and the Dwarves don't seem like the types who move very fast - plus, traveling with a crowd will always, always be inherently slower than traveling with just a few people. Imagine mealtimes, if nothing else - those would be twice as long, what with people starting to eat at slightly different times and talking to each other and so forth. Also there's the food factor - Tolkien says that they didn't get much from the trolls, and even a lot divided between fifteen is going to dry up pretty quickly. It sounds like they were a bit short when they reached Rivendell, but certainly not eating crusts or reduced to the condition that they were in Mirkwood. Those factors combined make me think that they were out there closer to five days than fifteen.

So that's all - I admit, it's grossly speculative, but it seems worth thinking about. Make of it what you will [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].
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Old 12-15-2003, 12:14 AM   #17
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BTW - doug*platypus*, my guess about the "Mouth of Sauron" is that since it's Sauron speaking *through* him, maybe he's allowed to say the name. The Mouth is described as someone so subsumed in Sauron (wow, that was ssssibilant) that he cannot even remember his own name or country of origin. He's literally nothing now except Sauron's talking head, and since the rest of his mind has been so thoroughly vacuumed away we could guess that any words he speaks or opinions he utters are being dictated by Sauron himself - he doesn't have a mind left to create its own words. And of course, Sauron is allowed to name himself.
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Old 12-15-2003, 02:58 AM   #18
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Actually if you read the book “The Middle Earth Atlas” by Karen Wynn Fonstad (I think it is or similar) this problem is looked at in some detail.
Bilbo’s journey to Rivendell actually takes far longer than Frodo’s. So much longer in fact that when you consider it in terms of miles per day it becomes almost ludicrously slow. Even more so when you consider that all the Dwarves and Bilbo were mounted whilst the Hobbits in LOTR usually were not.
Also Bilbo’s journey through the Trollshaws was suspiciously quick as well as the issue with the Troll’s fire being visible from the road whereas in Frodo’s case it appeared to be someway distant.

The only real answer is that the geography was far more fluid in the Hobbit, especially west of the Misty Mountains.
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Old 12-15-2003, 06:36 AM   #19
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The real problem with Bilbos journey is the troll fire visible from the last Bridge. While Bilbo & Co. needed only a couple of hours to reach the Trolls, the timepressed Ranger Aragorn needed a fiew days to find the same spot.

But there is an explaination for this: If we lock to the textual history of The Hobbit we find that the last bridge was added to this passage to build a link to The Lord of the Rings. Beforhand the road which they followed hand run alongside a river for a while. And that river was obviuosly not the Mitheithel but the Bruine.

So Tolkiens failure was the addition of the last Bridge in this passage. He himself never marked the simple solution.

I think this one of the few passages were the canon could contradict the text of the last edition of a book published by Tolkien himself. Since if we take the text of the first Hobitt edition we would have no contadition at all.

That the Dwarves needed much longer than Frodo and his freinds can be explained: If you look at the beginning of the juorney it is said that they were approaching very slow and carrying great store of goods. I think that they faigined to be on a bussines trip, which was not so uncommen for Dwarves. But that would also mean that they had to stop in each village to sell their goods. That would explain any lenght of the journey.

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Old 12-15-2003, 02:42 PM   #20
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Quote:
Bilbo's journey to Rivendell actually takes far longer than Frodo's. So much longer in fact that when you consider it in terms of miles per day it becomes almost ludicrously slow.
Thay had Bilbo with them: they had to keep stopping to eat!
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Old 12-15-2003, 03:17 PM   #21
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I think that this issue of the Last Bridge really demonstrates what a mistake it was to try to re-work The Hobbit to fit The Lord of the Rings. The real pity is that Tolkien had already made enough references to the Silmarillion material to make it virtually impossible to use it in another book without setting it in the reality of The Hobbit. This doesn't absolve him from this alteration, though: the discovery of the trolls is amusing and provides a link to the earlier work, but it was in no way necessary to add that incident in order to combine the two stories. It looks as though the inclusion of the scene in the Trollshaws in the later work, and associated re-writing of The Hobbit to bring it in line with the new material was an act of pure self-indulgence (possibly with half a mind on the effect it would have on those who had read the earlier book). I quite like the scene with the petrified trolls, so for me this isn't too much of a problem; but it's certainly an obvious case of Tolkien being unable to resist re-writing material that didn't need to be changed.

As for the shadow from The Ring Goes South, I'm intrigued by this error. It's an easy one to miss, as evinced by the fact that I'd never really thought about it before; and it isn't essential to the plot other than to add a sense of foreboding and general threat at that moment. Although we might be able to excuse Tolkien for missing this small slip in a work as large as The Lord of the Rings it does serve to remind us that he wasn't as infallible as some of us might sometimes think him.

Regarding The New Shadow, personally I feel that any mistakes in works that Tolkien never submitted for publication are irrelevant. He lost interest in The New Shadow before he had even worked out how it was to end, so for me it stands only as an example of an idea that came to him. It is the nature of rough material to be unfinished and to contain errors, particularly with an author like Tolkien, who was in the habit of writing early drafts in a great hurry and then re-writing them several times.

It may not be a continuity error, but the classic example of a Tolkienian slip is the passage in The Bridge of Khazad-dûm in which the Balrog is described. Having quite legitimately set up the picture of a creature wreathed in a shadow that looks like huge wings, he then forgets that he was using a simile and refers to 'its wings'. As Mister Underhill pointed out when he mentioned this in another thread, this one slip has caused so much fruitless argumentation and speculation that it's spawned the joke of referring to solutionless Tolkien debate as 'balrog-winging'.
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Old 12-15-2003, 07:30 PM   #22
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... this one slip has caused so much fruitless argumentation and speculation that it's spawned the joke of referring to solutionless Tolkien debate as 'balrog-winging'.
In some cases the more appropriate term might be "Balrog-whingeing". [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]
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Old 12-16-2003, 07:00 PM   #23
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I recently found another continuity error.

In The Taming of Smeagol when Frodo and Sam are going down the cliff of the Emyn Muil Frodo determines the cliff to be approximately 18 fathoms high. A fathom is about 6 feet so that would make the cliff 108 feet. This is confirmed when Sam measures his rope which is about 30 ells. According to Webster's Dictionary, and ell is about 45 inches, so 30 ells would be 1350 inches, or 112.5 feet. BUT when Sam and Frodo see Gollum climbing down the same cliff Tolkien describes Gollum to be three quarters of the way down and 50 feet from the bottom. This would mean that the cliff is 200 feet high, rather than about 110 feet high.

Any thoughts?
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Old 12-16-2003, 09:12 PM   #24
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Yes. But I'll be nice and not repeat them here. Okay, maybe one.

I love that moment in The Simpsons when the folk of Springfield are crowded around Alec Baldwin's mansion, and Comic Book Guy has this big folder with him. He says "Alec, Alec! I have compiled a list of technical errors from The Hunt for Red October which I think you'd enjoy discussing!"

I think I can live with that particular continuity error. But I am quite impressed that you worked that out! I hope it didn't stick out too much when you were reading the book; it's a shame if one detail like that could affect a great chapter. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
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Old 12-17-2003, 03:17 PM   #25
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No, it didn't. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] It took me a while to realize it and I just thought it was kind of interesting.
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Old 12-17-2003, 07:52 PM   #26
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You know what I've always wondered? It says everywhere that Frodo knows elvish. So shouldn't he have known what 'Cirith Ungol' meant? (I'm pretty sure it means Spider's Cleft). If he had heeded the nasty hidden clue in the name, he wouldn't have been half killed and got Sam into all that trouble into rescuing him. [img]smilies/confused.gif[/img]
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Old 12-17-2003, 09:18 PM   #27
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Yes, but everyone has to have their stupid moments, from time to time. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]
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Old 12-18-2003, 02:11 AM   #28
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Yes, like when Gandalf couldn't remember the password to Moria even though the riddle was easy.

Just wondering, isn't the people not being allowed to say 'Melkor' just like Harry Potter wizards not being able to say 'Voldemort'? Off topic, but still.

I would think that the Elves would say it from time to time...
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Old 12-18-2003, 03:51 PM   #29
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I think we're starting to get silly now.

Gandalf's explanation for his mistake at Moria Gate is good enough for me. The inscription is deliberately cryptic and easily mistranslated (almost certainly written to be so), and the solution is only obvious once revealed. As he says himself: "Quite simple. Too simple for a learned lore-master in these suspicious days." This reveals how clever is the inscription: to simple and honest people, the first thing that would spring to mind would be to say "friend", but to someone of a suspicious bent, the sort of person one might want to deny entry, the obvious would be the last thing that would occur.

As for Cirith Ungol, it's clear from the way in which Faramir reveals the name that this alone should worry Frodo. He doesn't take this path because he is unaware of the danger, but because he has no other way to go: the Morannon has already been found to be too heavily guarded to make a safe point of entry and the only other way into Mordor is through Khand. This route would mean passing to the south of the Ephel Dúath and back past the Sea of Núrnen; a round trip of hundreds of miles through enemy territory. The chances of success would be slimmer than those of braving Cirith Ungol, and even success would come too late to help Mordor's enemies.
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